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A teenage father has pleaded guilty after shaking his 23-day-old daughter to death.

Thomas Haining was charged with culpable homicide at The High Court in Edinburgh, which heard of how the young father from Inverness had inflicted “catastrophic and unsurvivable” head injuries to the newborn.

Mikayla died on the night of June 7, 2017, when Haining had stayed up to look after the “unsettled” baby.

She had said to have been suffering from diarrhoea in the days leading up to her death, which would have been probable cause for her irritability and crying.

Haining, 19, at the time of the crime, told police how he had taken the baby out of her moses basket for a feed while his partner at the time, Shannon Davies, was sleeping upstairs.

He said it was after this that the newborn had become drowsy and unresponsive, at which point his ex-partner said Haining went “into a panic”.

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The judge on the case, Lord Pentland, said he would remand Haining in custody until his sentencing hearing on October 15, with a report to be carried out to support mitigation from the defence.

Haining, now 21, was led away from the courtroom after a man in the public gallery shouted “you murdering f***ing bastard.”

Detective Inspector Brian Geddes, the officer said: “Haining took the life of his daughter, a beautiful baby girl, in the most horrendous of circumstances.

“At just days old, Mikayla should have been safest in the arms of her father - instead he inflicted injuries so severe that she would never recover.

“I would like to thank Mikayla’s extended family for their support throughout our investigation and I sincerely hope that the punishment handed to Haining offers them some form of closure so that they can begin to move on with their lives.”